Granted, but this time around, the multiplayer divisions didn't really get that much attention in the first place. It makes sense that the single player division got more reviews; it had more to offer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SRB2WikiSonicMaster

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blue Warrior

I realize there was... well, a miniscule amount of effort that was put into the level, so I gave it one more point above the minimum.

The minimum is 0, BW, not 1.

I only give 1s if the wad is horrible. 0 is if it's actually unplayable.

I have just hosted a server and played the multiplayer maps, and I'll be voting on them shortly.

I started doing it after BlueZero4 complained about turning Super Sonic in Super Special Stage Zone, and giving gamedata is really what he suggested.

Yeah, right. I didn't suggest anything. Using a gamedata is mostly a bad idea because it creates an extra file in my SRB2 folder.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SRB2WikiSonicMaster

Unfortunately, I really am not going to listen to your suggestions, simply because your opinion is basically the polar opposite of the majority.

Um, what?

At the moment, there seem to be two types of people: The people that love your level to a fanboy-ish extend and ignore the flaws, and the people who notice the flaws and don't enjoy the level because of them. My advice is that you should listen to the people who see the flaws so that the people who enjoyed your levels before will enjoy your future levels even more.

__________________[scr_bz4pack.wad] — I get an email whenever you PM me, if you ever want to say hi.

Sure it was solid, but it was kind of dull to run through the stage. It would be nice to see some gimmicks that center around challenging us, rather than gimmicks that are just there to go, "Hey, look at meee!"

For the record, I thought the icicle spikes were very cool. A little ineffective, but cool nonetheless.

EDIT: I just wish you based more of your level around fresh concepts like that.

All maps listed below were played with between four to nine players. They have also been rendered with both OpenGL and Software.

Match Division

MAPA1 - Grittzy Gultch Zone - 8/10

This is a solid canyon-themed map. The cacti were a nice touch, and the geographical structure combined with the thing placement is pretty spot-on. I have no frets over this zone, and the slight variety throughout the map (a pond with a pit and special ring in it; a collapsing bridge; small breakable structures that occasionally have monitors inside them) makes for an enjoyable netgame.

MAPA2 - Hyrule Temple - 7/10

Like the above map, Hyrule Temple is a solid map that may not be full of gimmicks, but is still nicely structured and contains a good sense of thing placement. This map is equally vertically structured as it is horizontally, and yet Sonic players can still traverse the map with no hassle. However, in areas where FOFs loom over pits, there are untagged deathpits which need to be fixed. Fortunately, this generally doesn't interrupt the flow of gameplay.

MAPA3 - Plumber's Tower Zone - 7/10

Heh, very creative. This is a Mario-themed map... which I suppose you could say is three levels in one. The top-most is your average overworld theme, the middle is underground, and the bottom-most is dungeon/castle themed. The use of pipes and question blocks works very nicely here. Even though each individual portion of the zone is fairly small, the netgame will have players split up into each different section (thus causing uncrowded battles), so the size of the three "levels" really works. There's too generous of an amount of ring-coin hybrids, however, and so a player would have to really suck in order to die in the zone. Speaking of dying, some player starts are poorly placed so that a player is "crushed" upon spawning. I also encountered a sigsegv after obtaining a shield from a question block; I can't seem to recreate the bug, but the occurrence suggests that this map might be somewhat unstable.

CTF Division

MAPA4 - Jagged Valley Zone - 5/10

Well... I hate to give one map an abnormally short review compared to the rest, but a CTF map can't get anymore generic than this. The zone has an okay layout, but it's far too short to sustain much of a netgame. Extend or enlarge the map a bit, and I'd say you have a pretty good map.

MAPA5 - Scorching Ice Floe Zone - 7/10

A nice blending of themes here. I like the use of the damaging water flow in this map, as well as the overall layout of the map, but I have two beefs. The first is that the jumps you have to make in the middle of the stage are strict. I would lower the heights a little bit so that people don't just barely miss the jump. Also, you've got to either lighten the density of the central water's colormap, or allow more sector light. In OpenGL, this is not a problem, but in the Software, the springs are flat out invisible. In fact, the first time I played this (which was in Software mode), I assumed there weren't any springs in the water just because it was too dark to see the springs -- which was annoying, because I didn't feel like waiting to drown.

Race Division

MAPA6 - Backwards Race Zone - 8/10

Sheesh, seems like these NiGHTS maps are getting more and more frequent. Personally, I think this beats Slumber Circuit by a longshot. Backwards Race Zone is just the right length, is pretty easy to navigate, and doesn't keep having you bounce against walls all of the time; the map even looks better, I think. No quarrels here, though I heard someone got stuck through a paraloop bug and couldn't get himself back on track.

MAPA7 - Cosmic Caves Zone - 5/10

This map feels like I'm racing through potato mines in space. Yeah. Anyway, the level isn't too bad, compared to what Vanilla SRB2's circuit maps have to offer, but the map would have been more enjoyable if it wasn't such a generic thokfest. Also, one of your checkpoints are a little screwed up; rather than just passing it, you have to bump into it in order to activate it.

Sure it was solid, but it was kind of dull to run through the stage. It would be nice to see some gimmicks that center around challenging us, rather than gimmicks that are just there to go, "Hey, look at meee!"

For the record, I thought the icicle spikes were very cool. A little ineffective, but cool nonetheless.

Well, Kuja, there are quite a lot of easter eggs in the stage. Did you find all four buttons? As soon as the pillars the gargoyles are on are even with the floor, that door will open :D

Yeah, I did. Took about 70 minutes in a netgame. But that seems like a whole lot of work just to get some decent gameplay, you know? I felt like I was taking a trip to an art museum, and that's no good. :P

So far most of the Singleplayer levels looks surprisingly good. I want to play a few of them over again before I vote.

Still looking for all the buttons in Elemental Mansion, all these other secrets are throwing me off. I'd like to disagree with the contents of one of the secrets but this isn't the place for it. I would like to find this secret before I rate the map because it is very similar in many aspects of another SP map released in a contest, and I ended up changing my vote after seeing it.

I haven't played any of the match/race/ctf levels in multiplayer, but I'm pretty sure that the NiGHTS race is the best I've seen yet... if only it wasn't ANOTHER grass themed level. I think both the one ctf map and elemental mansion show that it is very easy to switch from one generic theme to another. I'd really like to see some fire and factory themed NiGHTS levels myself.

__________________
"A man who's a dreamer and never takes leave, who thinks of a world that is just make believe
Will never know passion, will never know pain, who sits by the window will one day see rain..."

As I said in a previous post, this level reminds me of BlueZero4's entry last Summer, NSZ2. This level featured frequent theme changes, semi-basic gameplay, as well as a great deal of secrets. In a great many places this level stood out for the amount of effort put into some of the effects or decoration.
[list:52a23fe4b2]Theme\Layout:

So the main theme of this level is actually a collection of generic themes. Actually the themes were a little too generic. The thing that unified all of the seperate themes were the fact that they all played similarily and the areas were almost always laid out squarish and AGZ-ish. Some of the areas looked great, like the caves in the lava section or the rooms in the sand area while others looked rather boring like some of the water rooms and the entire ice section. The level had a pretty decent amount of nonlinearity, though a great many of the alternate paths were 'secret' paths, causing the less observant player miss out.

My main gripe with the layout would be that it was very unfriendly to backtracking which I did a ton of to find the secrets. If you go by the left path at the start you will not have a chance to access the secret, and one time I had to restart because by taking an alternate path in the ice area I bypassed a button that was necessary to allow me to come back that way.

Additionally I have to say that I'm starting to see more and more justification of my view that a level should stick to one or two unified themes, preferably approached differently in each act. Its just hard to keep the gameplay fresh and to develop the level to be interesting when you go at it this way.

Gameplay\Gimmicks:

I'm bridging a bit with my analysis of the themes of the level, but I have to say that the fact that all of these areas were generic and familiar somewhat took away from the experience. The area exclusive gimmicks usually weren't anything interesting and were only implemented in a shallow way. For example the lava was not much of a hazard for most of the fire themed area, only some damaging liquid that rests at the bottom. The current was boring in the way it was implemented as it became a point where I just sit there and watch Sonic go flying.

One thing I need to note is that all of the areas with damaging water were awful deep. If I took too long finding a spring, I didn't make it out alive and I had no chance of recovering any of my lost rings because by the time I could try to catch them they had scattered too far away to reach. *EDIT* In response to SonicMaster's post, the spring's weren't hard to find, but the water was just a little bit deep. If the water is going to damage the player it should probably be relatively shallow.

I've said before that this level shows how easy it would be to swap generic themes with one another. Platforming, hazardous water, and enemies were the main thing that made up everything in the level and it got pretty boring after a while.

Secrets:

This level was pretty heavy on the secrets, and I hated playing through many of the areas the second time around, so considering I was revisiting certain segments dozens of times to find their secrets I have to admit that I was often thankful for the level's simplicity even if it was perhaps for the wrong reasons.

A couple secrets stated your opinions on things and while I have nothing against you personally and I may not care about the issues that you shared your views on... I have to admit that my first impulse on each of these was to be offended. This will not affect the score of your level, but I think a little more subtlety should be used in expressing your opinions.

The whole secret area was the same deal as the entire rest of the level. A few slide-ish areas were old news by this time because of both the sand area and the water currents. The NiGHTS bumpers and hoops did make things a little interesting, but there weren't any elements or gimmicks that changed the gameplay to any real extent. I'm not against being a little light on the gimmicky aspect of things and do believe that too many of them can break a level, but this level really could have used a few more of these.

Overall:

This was a pretty solid level the whole way through. A little bland in some places while ornate in others, but the whole premise was using a ton of already established themes and the fact that they were only a part of the level made it so that you couldn't really make use of any imaginative gimmicks. Secrets ensured that there was a ton of stuff to come back for, but by the time I found them all I was just tired of the level. Next time, try to be a little more creative with the sort of gameplay the players should hope to see... a consistent and fresh theme *will* help.

Score: 6

Magma Core: 8

I was so impressed with this level when I first went into it that I was tempted to give it a perfect score. However playing through it I definitely noted quite a few flaws. I still have to admit though that this was one of the best experiences I've had playing an SRB2 level that I can remember.

Theme\Layout:

There's been quite a few volcano levels in the past and the usual hazards are present here. I was surprised to find the level so visually pleasing, especially considering the frequent use of the 'realistic' Mystic Ruins texture. I would have liked to see a slight bit more variation on this point, perhaps just to spruce up the large wall areas or to set apart the caverns from the tunnels, but the level was always fun to look at. The decoration was seldom in the way and was always just enough to make it look good. Each factory area was well implemented to give a slight bit of variation in the theme, but while remaining consistent with the rest of the level.

The layout itself was nothing spectacular but the branching paths were well done. I was never disoriented nor did I feel like I was on the same path for too long.

Gameplay\Gimmicks:

The lava hazard was present throughout the entire level and was usually not too obtrusive. There were a few major gimmicks which were used, expanded upon, and distributed evenly for the most part which I felt really added something to the level while none of them were overtly unique.

There were some issues with these gimmicks though, especially with the spin-rise platforms and the falling rocks. As neat as a concept it was, they just fell too quickly for me to easily navigate past them. I usually found myself just thokking through them or walking around them. Additionally, while I had no trouble figuring out that I had to spin-dash to raise the platform, the second room with the spin-raise gimmick was almost impossible because I had no time to cancel the spindash *and* jump on to the next platform. I had once managed to come close by releasing the spindash and trying to stop myself by one of the skinny supports, but it usually didn't work.

I liked the way you hid the emerald and also the way that it was much more difficult to get it in 'Hard' than in the other difficulty modes. I have to admit to cheating ever so slightly by looking for the Inferno Shields in SRB2:DB, but the secret was hidden well enough that it was neither unfairly difficult to find nor painfully obvious.

Difficulty:

The main problem with this level was in its difficulty. I noticed that the gameplay was quite different on the multiple difficulty levels, for example the lava rose much slower on 'Easy' and the turret was present at the start on 'Hard'. I thought that I'd be able to enter the door that shut in my face on 'Easy' difficulty but it seems that you didn't go that far in changing things. Additionally, the lava rose pretty quickly in Normal mode, and I noticed no difference between that speed and Hard mode, I'd recommend slowing it down a bit for the normal variation as it would have made quite a few things seem a little more fair.

The one glaring problem that I noticed quite early on was that there were very few starposts. With this being as difficult a level as it is, it felt a little unfair when I would barely pass one area to die midway through the next and then to have to repeat both of them. This was more of a problem in the first and last parts of the level than anywhere else.

Overall:

The main issue with this level was the difficulty involved. I thoroughly enjoyed this level though in spite of a few deaths which seemed a little cheap. There wasn't a ton of depth which begged me to return to the level looking for secrets, but the one I did find was rewarding albeit simple.

Score: 8

Limestone Ruin: 4 (N/A if proven to be against rules)

The level was very decorative in some places, but I'll have to admit that it would be very difficult for me to find an underwater ruin or an areal garden theme fresh and appealing. No points taken off for this of course, just something to mention as a note. Even considering the amount of inaccessible decorations though it wasn't that impressive.

Theme\Layout:

Nothing worth mentioning more than I said before. Layout is more or less standard but there were some areas where the path divided only to meet with it again a moment later and I wondered why I bothered going out of my way to go that direction in the first place.

Gameplay\Gimmicks:

While the level wasn't exactly hard, it was on the other hand quite full of cheap challenges. Most of this centered on the fast currents in the murky water where I plummeted into spikeballs and bottomless pits at top speeds. Another challenge involved entering a very small cave and avoiding reverse crushers and more bottomless pits. Aside from that there was really nothing else worth mentioning. I would have liked to see a starpost after that area as well because that was one segment I grew easily tired of replaying.

Overall:

The whole thing was either boring or cheap. It looked promising at first, but the water colormap should have been a little lighter at the very least.

Score: 4

Limestone Lake: 3

At first I liked the way this level looked and I really enjoyed the music, but there were more than a few issues that prevented me from really enjoying this level.

Theme\Layout:

The theme itself was nothing really out of the ordinary, but the layout was very bothersome. Aside from the fact that there are dead-ends everywhere, the paths weren't linear or straightforward enough. The outer area had several entrances into a cave, which had two exits into another outer area which had an exit sign hidden behind the flowers. There was almost nothing in the individual paths that seemed to make much of a difference.

Gameplay:

Some of my main complaints about the level would be that there really isn't very much to the level except hopping over a few islands. If you fall in the water you end up having to travel quite some distance to find a single spring to get out. The random and excessive placement of enemies in several of the platforms was also quite annoying.

Overall:

The whole level just feels like a jumbled mess the whole way through. A clearly defined path would be the first thing I would try to accomplish to make this better.

Score: 3

Arid Oasis: 4 (N/A if proven to be against rules)

Well considering the limitations that has faced all past 2d attempts in SRB2, this level still didn't seem to bad. I tried to play the game in ShufflaRB2 considering that the vanilla adaption wouldn't work as well but unfortunately the springs that made it possible to escape some of the secret areas were absent. I played through it in both

Theme\Layout:

The theme was pretty decently applied, I've seen better 2d levels and I've definitely seen some uglier ones. Layout was very linear, which is what you'd probably expect from a Mario-mode level, but it could definately have benefited from some alternate paths.

Gameplay:

The excess of enemies became somewhat aggravating when playing this in ShufflaRB2 and aside from the lack of springs that would have been my only gripe, but unfortunately I believe that I have to go with my experience playing this level in Vanilla SRB2 to judge it. The main issues here were basically that there was not very much difficulty presented by the level except falling off because of the speed of the character.

Overall:

Not bad for a 2d level, but its especially hard to make even a decent 2d level actually work in Vanilla SRB2. Gameplay was more or less standard for Mario-mode, but it was a little flat and would definitely benefit from some alternate paths.

Score: 4

Techno Meadow: 1

This levels faults are mostly obvious. It is very flat and relies on traveling through seemingly hidden narrow paths. There's actually very little I can comment on.

__________________
"A man who's a dreamer and never takes leave, who thinks of a world that is just make believe
Will never know passion, will never know pain, who sits by the window will one day see rain..."

Single Player:
Elemental Mansion Zone, Act 1 by SonicMaster - 3/10
Looking at this wad through a lump editor, I noticed several cecho statement saying random unfunny stuff. I don't really know why you decided to do this, but whatever on to the actual level. There really isn't much to do, its relatively a long boring map.

Arid Oasis Zone by Hyperknux - 4/10
It looks pretty and all, but you didn't really focus on making jumps easy to see, and adjusting it to make it work better for srb2's crappy 2d mode. Seriously wait until 1.1 is out. It will probably fix some of the 2d mode problems.

Limestone Ruin Zone by Chaos - 1/10
A big chunk of this level was water pushing you down a linear path. The entire level was pretty linear actually. It didn't offer any places to explore or have platforming elements. Very boring and unfun.

Techno Meadows Zone by gaiamegu64@yahoo.com - 1/10
I think this was the worst of the bunch. You had some AFALL in there and grass walls which don't look good. The sector creation did not look planed out at all. I had no sense of where I am supposed to go.

Limestone Lake Zone by Zanyhead - 5/10
I was a bit annoyed that I had to backtrack to get to a path. It was also a bit short, but it did have some decent elements to it, just expand them and I think it would be a pretty fun level.

Magma Core Zone by Blade T. Hedgehog - 8/10
I had some fun on this map, it had some great scenery and gameplay. One big problem I had was the platforms that you had to spindash to go up, I couldn't figure out that is how you made them go up, and its a bit annoying when you place yourself in the wrong spot and spindash because you can't really cancel it out.

Match:
MAPA1 - Grittzy Gultch Zone by Chrome the hedgehog - 5/10
The main problem I had with this map was the large death pit. I think if it was smaller it would encourage more people to use the lower part. I think the water could be a bit smaller too.

MAPA2 - Hyrule Temple by N.Cenz - 6/10
I think this would be more fun if the building were a bit more spread out or the land area bigger. Even though it was small, I still had a bit of fun.

MAPA3 - Plumber's Tower Zone by SonicMaster - 6/10
I like the concept, though I am unsure if having 3 separate levels is that good for a match, especially a small one.

Capture the Flag:
MAPA4 - Jagged Valley Zone by Roy - 2/10
Pretty short, relatively uninteresting. I didn't really notice the paths below since it wasn't really visible. I think it would be better if it in the center.

MAPA5 - Scorching Ice Floe Zone by Oogaland - 6/10
The problem of this map is that it takes way to long to get a point, the path is too long.

Circuit:
MAPA6 - Backwards Race Zone by SonicMaster - 6/10
Despite the name of the name of the map, I still went to the right the first time lol. It felt a bit unnatural going left in srb2 nights for me.

MAPA7 - Cosmic Caves Zone by Simsmagic - 3/10
Seems like a typical circuit map, which is fine. The problem happens when you miss the checkpoint because the sector is too small, that happened way too often which deducted quite a bit of points for me.

JEV3, in the fire and ice section, there are several springs concentrated near the platforms. However, it doesn't seem you want to come back to the level, anyway. Hey, I feel like I did quite good for a second normal 1P level, actually.

I didn't mean for the one level review to be so harsh, but I guess it was. Sorry about that, Mystic. Poison Prison Zone was the only SRB2 zone I satired in there as a secret, hence the O_MAP28M lump...and I made that zone, so, uh...yeah?

Elemental Mansion Zone, Act 1 by SonicMaster - 3/10
Okay, don't get me wrong, this has potential, but you are seriously missing one of the MOST important things here. There is NOTHING to find in this level. There are tons of passages that lead to nothing, and I played through this level twice without getting any powerup better than a Super Ring. I found a breakable wall that leads to a teleport that lead to nothing more than more stage.

There is simply nothing to do here. Long passages with no content. Jump, jump, Crawla, jump, jump, Crawla, jump... You need to add more than just gimmicks and nice visuals to make a stage. Add some scenery objects. Add some powerups. Add some secrets, and I don't mean the "spindash a wall to get absolutely nothing" kind.

Oh, and the framerate sucks. Hard.

Arid Oasis Zone by Hyperknux - 3/10
Well, here is another victim of "2D mode sucks", and this time with blind jumps into bottomless pits! I give you props for making it pretty, but that doesn't change that the stage itself is really annoying to play.

Limestone Ruin Zone by Chaos - 1/10
I'll come right out and say it. What were you thinking? This is one gigantic string of cheap deaths the player cannot possibly see coming with so few Star Posts that you generally get knocked back by a full minute of game play if they die (which they will, since you can't avoid what you can't see).

This map is basically unplayable, and I only beat it by repetitively trying after dying in unavoidable way after unavoidable way. If the player can't see the hazard before it kills them, it's horrible, horrible design.

Techno Meadows Zone by gaiamegu64@yahoo.com - 3/10
Well, this looks like a "My first map" entry, and for one of those, it's really not all that terrible. You need a LOT more height variance. Let players jump around in your stage. SRB2 can do so much more than gigantic flat areas. It's also very hard to figure out where you're supposed to go, and the stage leads itself very easily to getting lost. Direct the player a little more and add more variety, and you'll probably be making much better stages.

Limestone Lake Zone by Zanyhead - 5/10
Well, this is rather mixed. I really like the look and feel of the outdoor areas, but I really hate having to trek back all the way underwater back to the beginning to get out. Might I suggest making the water into an alternate path if you fall instead, leading forward towards the end in a different way? Also, the cave areas were incredibly bland and uninteresting compared to the outside, which had much better looks AND gameplay.

Magma Core Zone by Blade T. Hedgehog - 8/10
Well, I admit it. I was surprised by the quality of this map. When it loaded up with Lava Reef music and SA textures after I had gone through the previous entries, I was prepared for another horrid map. What I got instead was a great stage with amazingly well-executed gimmicks that I fully enjoyed. I quite liked the falling rocks, even through they never posed a real threat, and the collapsing sections of the stage were great and really added a lot to the level's feel. However, there is definite room for improvement. First off, you need more Star Posts. As usual, buttons generally aren't a good idea. The first button was okay, but going all that way into the corner to open the second door was pretty lame. Finally, a few more hidden items would be nice. I found an Inferno Shield but not all that much else.

I'm feeling a bit lazy about the multiplayer maps, but I'll rate them anyway:

Match

MAPA1 - Grittzy Gultch Zone - 8/10

Blue Warrior summed it up nicely for me. Spacious, but not empty. A perfect combination.

MAPA2 - Hyrule Temple - 7/10

Played this map in a game. We had a good time, but the structures were a bit hard to shoot around and avoid bumping into in the middle of a firefight. Very playable, though.

MAPA3 - Plumber's Tower Zone - 8/10

Everything Blue Warrior said, I agreed with. Probably my 2nd favorite map to play, just barely losing to Grittzy Gultch. The pipe things worked a lot better than I thought they would, and the 3 layer fighting arena concept was extremely cool.

CTF

MAPA4 - Jagged Valley Zone - 4/10

*BW's post goes where?*

MAPA5 - Scorching Ice Floe Zone - 8/10

Wins by a long shot. However, the jumps in the middle are very unforgiving, if you miss, and the springs underwater are almost indistinguishable from the wall at a distance.

Race

MAPA6 - Backwards Race Zone - 7/10

I'm not much of a fan of NiGHTS racing, but at least it's easy to navigate in a laggy netgame without getting *too* frustrated. The appearance is nice, and the bumpers were well placed. The paraloop bug knocked off a point though, as SOMEONE will inevitably get knocked out of the track at that roundabout near the beginning.

MAPA7 - Cosmic Caves Zone - 5/10

It's a fine map. Like it's been stated before, the starposts are easy to miss. I was in first place, thokking towards the finish line when I realized that I must have missed a starpost. Ugh. x_X

Mystic, it seems as though you didn't count the six Extra Life Monitors, the Attraction Shield, the Fire Shield, the Water Shield, the Armageddon Shield, the Whirlwind Shield, the six Special Stage Tokens, and the two rooms with a lot of Rings.

I realize that three of the Special Stage Tokens are basically impossible to find, and I apologize. Let me hint you in on those.

The special stage token for the air section is hidden a similar way one of the other secrets near the end are hidden.
The special stage token for the sand section is, well, too hard to find without a hint. I apologize for that. It involves Crawlas. How's that?
The special stage token for the electrical section is quite difficult to find. Has anyone else found it besides Dark Warrior?